


digging for gold in our neighborhood

by bartonbones



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, author once again takes a 45 second scene and turns it in to 10 pages of nonsense, canon divergence but only slightly, fix it fic only in the sense it fixes what i don't like about the writing lol, the b in john b stands for bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:47:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24462994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bartonbones/pseuds/bartonbones
Summary: “Maybe the gold’s cursed,” tries John B, nudging JJ with his shoulder. He’s not really looking at him anymore, and JJ sets his jaw. Of course John B was going to try and be stupid and escapist now, when JJ has just stared at the truth head-on. He’s too annoyed to let John B do it, so he shakes his head instead of continuing the mythology.“No bueno, asshole,” he says. “I was being cute forty-five minutes ago. You didn’t want to go to Yucatan, so it’s real talk, now. Saddle up, bitch.”OR: in which John B apologizes for "You just wanna leave 'cause you got your ass beat?" but nothing else changes, because greed and grief are a terrible combination, and JJ Maybank doesn't know how to love without loss.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 93





	digging for gold in our neighborhood

**Author's Note:**

> THE B! IN JOHN B! STANDS! FOR! BASTARD! title from death cab for cutie's "gold rush" bc a) lmao and b) i title all my fics i don't know what to title from the songs i was listening to when i wrote them, even if they don't apply at all.

_digging for gold in my neighborhood,  
for what they say is the greater good;  
but all I see is a long goodbye. _

_it seems I never stopped losing you,  
as every dive becomes something new.  
and all our ghosts get swept away,  
it didn't used to be this way. _

On the boat ride to the bank, John B is quiet, in the way that John B is often quiet these days. It’s unfortunate because JJ isn’t in a quiet mood. He rarely is, actually, but sometimes he can be, if the vibes are wrong and everyone needs to chill out.

But now’s not one of those times. The police are staking out the Chateau, JJ was just bailed out from a _jail_ _cell_ only to get the shit beaten out of him, and—although John B doesn’t know this part, although he doesn’t intend to tell _anyone_ this part—JJ held a gun to his father’s sleeping temple and almost took the shot. 

So he’s quiet as long as he can be as John B steers the Pogue, until they pull up on some land and some ruins, communicating only when he had to and mostly through grunts and shrugs, because that’s all John B is giving back, and finally everything is all tied up and they’re hanging out on the ruins, and JJ is bouncing his foot against the stones, waiting for John B to ask about the split lip, about what his Dad said, if he had to pee in front of everyone in the jail cell, if he’s gotten any prison tats yet—

But he doesn’t. He just sits and stares out across the water, occasionally mentioning some aside about the letter or parcel nine or some shit, and he doesn’t ask once. 

Which is mostly just weird, because it’s not like John B, but it kind of has been, lately. He’s never thought John B had a one-track mind before, but maybe JJ’s just missed that fact about his friend. 

Eventually, JJ cracks. Because staying quiet for longer than forty-five minutes bothers him, and he used to always be able to count on John B and it’s starting to feel, more and more every day, like he actually can’t. 

“First I almost get strangled by Kooks,” he says, “And now I’m on the hook for thirty grand.” 

It doesn’t even feel real when he says it. JJ couldn’t even get a _credit card_ if he wanted, wouldn’t know how and wouldn’t trust himself with it, and now he owes thirty-thousand dollars for some rich kid’s speedboat and he’s got the split lip to prove it. It’s such a hilariously intangible amount of money, it’s more than he earns in a _year_. Even if he worked two jobs and didn’t eat, he wouldn’t be able to pay it off. It’s insurmountable. 

“We should just dip.” 

“Okay,” says John B. He’s perched on the other half of the ruins, and it’s just him and John B, the way it used to be in 3rd Grade. If JJ was patient and stupid, he could imagine that Big John drove them here, and is working on his maps out on the shore somewhere while they play pirates and bandits and Egyptian Rat Screw with the cards that John B thought to bring. 

He isn’t patient or stupid, but he can’t deny that there’s memories here, and wonder why this is where John B decided to drive the boat today. 

“Where do you wanna go, huh?” 

JJ isn’t stupid. He’s not great at school, fine, he doesn’t have a lot of ambition. He sucks at sudoku. But he can acknowledge what he’s good at, and he’s good at reading people, at reading _John B,_ and he knows this isn’t the kind of day-dreamy bullshit they sometimes spout when the sun has set and they’re three beers in. 

It’s just hard, right, because he really needs that right now, and it’s what he was asking for, in an indirect, frustrated way, the same way he always does when he needs distraction from something. _Hey, John B, what would it be like to get out of this place, to win the lottery, to—_

Usually John B is half-smiling and going along with it, throwing out wild little ideas that are real enough to add to the fiction and absurd enough that it’s not achievable, that it doesn’t hurt because it’s impossible in the first place — _we’d go to Hawaii, Bali, we’d own a Elephant ranch in Zimbabwe and all the girls would go crazy for our exotic pale skin_ —

But John B doesn’t sound like that now. His voice is stretched-thin and frustrated, and honestly, JJ’s not sure what to even do with it, not yet—cause the thing about people is that sometimes there’s just this phase where you have to test out what’s going to happen next, you don’t know. You just have to do your best not to piss them off if you don’t then great keep doing that and if you do then—well, you know what to do next time.

This is one of those times.

So JJ thinks for a moment, then clears his throat and throws out where he _wished_ this conversation was going, just in case. 

  
“Yucatan,” he says, with little effort. 

“ _Yu_ _catan,_ ” John B huffs, and JJ’s watching him from the corner of his eye, and he can’t tell if it’s still a frustrated John B in a fun, you’re-such-a-dumbass kind of affectionate annoyance way, or if he’s frustrated in a serious, you’re-pissing-me-off kind of way. JJ is not by nature a pessimistic person, so maybe it’s just the former, maybe it’s just a bad day killing the vibes or maybe his dad knocked something loose a few hours ago and everything’s just not matching up right, so he continues: 

“No, I’m dead serious right now,” he says. He’s not. But he wants to be, and honestly maybe he _could_ be—if there was a way to leave all this, to leave his dad saddled with the thirty thousand and to leave the stupid fucking treasure and the way it’s eaten up all their lives in favor of a simple life that they’ll actually enjoy, he’d take it in a second. “Surf all day—”

JJ glances out of the corner of his eye and sees John B, jaw clenched and eyes mid-roll, and he realizes that no, he was right, and it was a you’re-pissing-me-off kind of way, which is kind of bullshit, right? Because JJ didn’t do anything, just tried to lighten the mood and imagine living in Mexico for a minute, take a breather from all this mess and the police and everything else, and now John B’s fucking pissed. 

Well, there’s the thing. He can let John B be pissed and roll over and show his belly, but he tried to cheer John B up already and it didn’t work, so now that he knows he’s already made the first wrong choice in how to react that there’s no point in making anymore right ones. He’s long since learned that if people are angry they just kind of stay that way until they’re not, and he’s learned to hit back, because then it’s a fight, right? Otherwise you’re just getting hit. 

He gets up, using his hands to push him off the stone wall with more force than necessary. 

“Then we can just—” he shrugs his shoulders and curls his lips, deliberately mocking, because it’s absurd that John B is being moody when he’s not the one that just spent the afternoon in a fucking jail cell, “—live off lobsters we catch with our bare hands.” 

He finishes, his eyebrows raised at John B, challenging.

“Okay, so,” says John B, raising his eyebrows to match. He points a finger at JJ with his right hand, looking incredulous. “ _You_ just wanna leave cause your ass beat?” 

JJ blinks back. He’s a good friend, more patient than people give him credit for, actually, so JJ gives John B another chance to explain what the fuck he just chose to say, but not before raising his eyebrows to emphasize how whack it was.

"Fucking... _pardon_?" 

John B shrugs, not leaving his perch on top of the rocks, which gives him this shitty higher-ground look, like JJ’s being the ridiculous one, which makes him want to do something ridiculous like stand on the higher end of the ruins just to have some height on the motherfucker. 

“‘Cause that’s what it sounds like,” he says. “Like you’re gunna give this all up just because you got hit again.” 

There’s this nasty implication in what John B’s saying—actually, there’s many, but JJ can only focus on so many things—that not wanting to get beat up is somehow a character flaw. Which is _so_ fucking frustrating, actually, because isn’t John B the one that’s usually telling him not to throw the first punch, to let things go, not to always go straight to brawling it out? But now that it’s interfering with the quest for the gold, JJ should expect to get beat up and take one for the team. 

JJ sits with that for a second, rolling around responses in his mouth, but he finds that none of them taste quite as satisfying as he thought they would. He _hates_ fighting with John B. John B is capable of the coldest of shoulders and the most silent of treatments, and it makes JJ feel like shit every time, so he swallows down the rage and tries again. 

“You didn’t see the pictures, bro,” he says, because John B didn’t. He’s still chasing this rainbow like some bright-eyed, suntanned leprechaun, but he hasn’t seen what JJ’s seen, hasn’t seen into the future like JJ has, and he just needs to understand, JJ thinks. Maybe if he could explain how much worse this all is than John B believes, he’d take a breather. “I’m not the only one who’s gunna get my ass beat.” 

“I know!” says John B, but he doesn’t, and JJ _knows_ he doesn’t because he doesn’t sound horrified when he says it. There’s something unforgivably altering about seeing pictures like that, about knowing that the people who did it are looking down the barrel at you, too. 

Not even just at you, actually. 

At your friends—your _family_. 

“If they’re willing to _kill_ for the gold—” JJ hopes the next part of the sentence is _then we should mind our own business_ , but knows it’s not going to be “—then it’s gotta be out there!”

“Oh, my god,” says JJ, “Have you lost your _mind?_ ” 

He thinks back to _two weeks ago_ when John B used to be the _sane_ one. The rational one, the one that ignored both JJ’s exuberance and impulsiveness and Pope’s nervous over-thinking and planned for them the best of outings, the sickest of parties, always treading a careful, tidy little line between trouble and _trouble_. He was always able to bring out the best in all of them, until suddenly he wasn’t. 

Maybe he buried that gold for a reason. 

He blinks and he’s suddenly in John B’s face. God, did they used to fight this much? Is it still JJ’s fault? 

“One hundred _years,_ man,” he says. “One hundred years people have been tryin’ to find this Royal Merchant, and no one’s succeeded, and you think _you’re_ gunna be the one to finally find it?” 

If John B’s guilty of anything, it’s a misplaced sense of cocksured confidence. It usually isn’t a problem, usually it just means that when he shoots out of his league and doesn’t score he needs a little bit of a shoulder rub before he gets back in to the game. It means he wears the bandana around his neck and most of the time pulls it off. 

And they’ve all got flaws, right? JJ shouldn’t have convinced Pope to pull the plug from the speedboat, Kiara shouldn’t have abandoned them all for a year for the Kooks, and John B shouldn’t be risking everything for gold that he’s not even sure exists. 

He can come back from this, he just _doesn’t want to_.

“When are you gunna get it through your thick skull, if you keep going down this road, you’re gunna end up _just_ like your dad!” 

He’s yelling, he knows it. He’s just so _fucking_ angry that no one gives a shit if he gets hurt, if he gets bruised or bloodied, that it means nothing to John B if it hurts to breathe, if his head is still pounding. Or maybe he’s not, maybe he’s just afraid of it happening, of John B ending up like his dad, washed up on some island somewhere without leaving a trace, probably dead, probably without even thinking about his son back on the shore. 

Maybe he’s _terrified_ , right, of those pictures, that he’s starting to see every time he closes his eyes, that one day he’ll be looking at them but it won’t be the thugs, it will be John B or Pope or Kiara and he’s not going to be able to handle it. 

Maybe John B’s not afraid for him because JJ doesn’t even know how to be afraid for himself. 

“I _can’t give up_ , JJ!” says John B, which is insane in a way JJ might even respect, if it didn’t come with the shove. 

Normally, a shove isn’t anything. JJ barely feels it, most of the time, it’s just an acceptable way to express your frustration when your friends are being a shithead. Normally, JJ would shove him back, no problem, and maybe they’d get knocked in the sand or end up with a few tender spots but later on they’d be fine. 

But it’s funny, maybe he’s just tired, maybe he’s just stressed out, but he shuts down the second John B’s hands make contact with his chest. One minute, he’s furious, he’s terrified, he feels everything in an acute, painful way, in a way that’s almost too terrible say, too big to jagged to form in to words even to shout, and the next—

Nothing. 

Just nothing. 

_Just cause you got your ass beat_?

JJ’s been getting his ass beat for sixteen years. He doesn’t push back.

John B’s saying something, explaining himself, and the tension is wearing down, he’s moving away and he’s not going to hit JJ again. He knows he isn’t—John B is unstable these days, either manic or despondent and nowhere inbetween, but he’s not like that. He’s not going to make a fist unless someone makes a fist first.

But JJ’s heart is having trouble believing that. It’s pounding against his chest, painfully, and he’s still hearing it— _because you got hit again_ —because John B doesn’t care, and if he doesn’t care what’s stopping him, and he has to force himself to ignore that, not to give in to the easy blame. 

John B’s not going to hurt him. He doesn’t. 

But it takes JJ a lot longer to believe that than it used to. 

When his brain finally catches up with John B’s words, he’s talking about his father, saying, 

“Then I told him he was a shit father,” and he sounds close to tears, which makes JJ work his jaw, because he knows this is hard for him. Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to _not_ have a shit father, but he knows what it’s like to lose something you loved.

Mom left when he was six, and he remembers that. 

“Bro, that wasn’t your fault,” he says, quietly, because okay, if that’s what this is about—some fucking daddy-issues abandoment bullshit, maybe they can just talk about _that_ instead, and not keep going down this path that’s going to earn them folders in the police station and drawers in the morgue. 

“It _doesn’t matter_ whose fault it is, JJ!” John B says, and he’s leaning toward JJ again, which doesn’t feel good at all, “Don’t you understand that?” 

JJ’s still working his jaw. He’s listening, but he’s a hundred miles away. 

He hates it when John B gets in his face like this, hates it when anyone does, but usually he can give as good as he gets, it’s just now—for whatever reason, all the fight’s out of him. He has no desire to get hurt and even less desire to see John B _get_ hurt, be even one step closer to those pictures than he is now. 

“I don’t care, who’s out there, who’s gunna try to kill us, do you _understand_ that?” 

_"Fuck_ you,” says JJ, and John B blinks back, surprised. “Fuck you, John B.” 

He’s quiet. That’s probably the thing that’s messing John B up, keeping him still and shocked and leaned away, and barely mouthing a response. JJ does not have a quiet kind of anger, he has a loud, physical outburst followed by immediate forgiveness and passing a blunt. He has short, fire-bright bursts and he doesn’t hold grudges. 

But he’s quiet, now, because if he yelled it would feel normal, and this _isn’t_.

“What?” says John B, who has maybe never actually been told _fuck you_ from someone who loved him before, at least not so directly, and not with so much commitment.

“You heard me,” he says. " _Fuck you._ Nevermind all that shit. You’re _just_ like him, John B. You had a shitty dad, _just_ like me, except now you’re being a shitty friend, too. Get fucking choked, bro.” 

Then he’s adjusting his hat and storming off, and the wind’s picking up, which is good, because it means he doesn’t have to hear John B try to defend himself as he pushes through the growing bush back to the Pogue. Island life never fucking disappointed, you fight with your best friend and then it’s a fifteen-minute boat ride back to inhabitable land, but whatever. He’ll sit on the edge and look at the sunset and let John B drive, and maybe this will all be fine in the morning, and maybe it won’t, but he’s going to try not to look at John B in the face because he’s worried he’s going to start doing something stupid, like crying. 

It doesn’t turn out that way, though, because it turns out for once that John B’s unpredictability as of late actually has a good side, because instead of keeping his silence and holding his grudges until Pope forces them to make good or JJ eventually forgets, because instead of going straight to the helm and not asking for any help, John B sits down next to JJ and leans on his palms, looking at him carefully. 

“You’re right,” he says. 

“I sometimes am,” says JJ. “Broken clocks, and all that shit.” 

It’s funny but it’s not. Maybe it would have landed better a week ago, but it doesn’t now, because they both know JJ’s right a whole lot more than that and they both know neither of them is going to mention it. 

“Maybe the gold’s cursed,” tries John B, nudging JJ with his shoulder. He’s not really looking at him anymore, and JJ sets his jaw. Of course John B was going to try and be stupid and escapist _now_ , when JJ has just stared at the truth head-on. He’s too annoyed to let John B do it, so he shakes his head instead of continuing the mythology.

“No bueno, asshole,” he says. “I was being cute forty-five minutes ago. _You_ didn’t want to go to Yucatan, so it’s real talk, now. Saddle up, bitch."

John B swallows, and JJ looks over and sees that his face is actually quite grim, which helps—it helps to see John B looking grim, looking anyway at all, actually, but especially looking like he’s starting to understand what he’s actually asking from everyone. 

“Okay,” says John B. He purses his lips, nods, and looks JJ up and down. “Go for it. Tell me the truth. I should hear it.” 

“You’re being an egomaniac who doesn’t care if his friends get fucking _murdered_.” 

John B nods. He’s accepting the judgment, which is refreshing. At least he’s capable of doing that—he’s not all bad, John B. None of them are. But this whole thing—it’s got them actually fuckin' insane, and sometimes JJ’s worried he’s the only one really seeing it. He needs John B to start seeing it, too. 

“Like, I’d follow you anywhere, man, but—” he struggles for a second, for the words, because he _would_ and he probably _will_. Even if John B didn’t come sit next to him and ask for the honest truth, he’d follow him.

He’d follow him because he doesn’t know who he is without John B, and he’s not ready to confront that. Because he’s _thirty-thousand dollars_ in debt and he doesn’t know how he’s going to get out of it. Because John B is where Kiara is, where Pope is, where his _life_ is.

But most of all, he’d follow John B for the same reason he still has his mom’s number from a decade ago in his phone, for the same reason he can look at his dad through the barrel of a gun and still come home and watch football. Because even though it’s the very thing that John B is so incapable of handling that it’s making him follow a wild goose chase, in to gunfire and criminal charges, it’s what makes up JJ at his very core.

He would follow John B because JJ Maybank does not know, has never known, how to love without loss. 

“—but?” tracks John B, squinting at the sun. 

“But I’m _scared_ , John B,” he laughs, once, it bubbling from his throat unwillingly. “I’m scared shitless. Those people would _tear_ through us—through Kiara, through Pope, through _Sarah_ —through all of us, okay? And it’s like you don’t even see that, like—” 

He struggles for the words. Except, no, that’s not it, he knows exactly the what the words are, he just knows he’s terrified to say them, scared that he’s wrong and John B will never forgive him for saying it and absolutely terrified that he’s right. 

“Like you don’t even care what _happens_ to us, bro.” 

“Fuck.” 

John B cringes. JJ can feel it, actually, the way his shoulders tense up and his face pulls together, moving away from where he’d been leaning, ever-so-slightly against JJ’s smaller frame. It feels good, actually, that John B’s reacting, that he’s not yelling or distracting with some shiny new hint or just staring off in to the middle-distance until he snaps back. 

He’s here. And he’s sorry. 

“JJ, I—” he shakes his head. “You really think that?” 

“You said, that I wanted to leave,” JJ doesn’t look at John B when he laughs, because it’s not just funny, it still smarts, makes the inside of his chest feel like it’s lined with acid. “Just because I got beat up. Like—like getting your face caved in by your old man isn’t a good enough reason to want to jump ship.” 

He’s saying it like he believes it’s not, but really, he’s not. He’s asking. He wants John B to say it— _getting your face caved in by your dad is a good enough reason to want to leave._ He wants to hear that it’s okay to feel like this, angry and cornered and scared and hurt, because he’s scared it’s not, that his dad was right, that boys don’t cry and he’s being a pussy and he just needs to—swallow it down and get over it. 

John B’s quiet for a moment. A long moment, long enough that JJ thinks _fuck_ , pushed it too far, and now he’s gone, and he’s not coming back. But then John B shakes his head and reaches around, pulling JJ close to his chest and pressing, _hard._

JJ’s too shocked to react. John B’s not in to physical affection, at least not as much as Pope is. Pope may be a nerdy bastard but he’s kind of like a cat, in reality—if he loves you he curls in close. John B, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily stay away from it, just doesn’t initiate it either, and almost never when he’s sober.

Which makes this whole thing really, really fucking weird. 

“I was wrong, JJ, I’m sorry,” he says, in to JJ’s shoulder. “I’m fucked up. I’m really sorry, JJ, but I think I’m really fucked up.” 

And there—it’s good. John B’s sorry and he’s admitting that he’s wrong and that’s enough for JJ, that’s always been enough for JJ, so he forgives him, on the spot. He wraps his arms around John B’s middle and hugs back. He can feel that John B is actually sorry, he's sobbing, anway, mixing snot and tears with the saltwater that is perpetually drying from JJ's shirt.

“Damn, bro,” he says, laughing, but the laughs catch and his nose is stinging, “I could have told you that.” 

Days later, JJ is standing in front of an open ocean, somewhere on which, under which, or besides which, John B’s body is floating or decaying, entirely without JJ beside it. John B apologized but kept looking, risked his life, found out what he shouldn’t have found out and thing had slowly but swiftly snowballed until there’s a storm and JJ’s dad’s boat and police officers offering their _sincerest condolences_. 

And JJ’s thinking back to this conversation, about how crazy Big John choosing the treasure over him made him, about how guilty he feels, about how angry he feels, about how guilty he feels about how angry he feels, about how much he wishes he could go back and apologize, go back and stop his dad from ever learning about the gold in the first place, go back and scream until his lungs are empty and it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. John B had gone absolutely batshit crazy, but the difference is that now JJ understands.

When he looks out over the water and knows what John B chose, he feels pretty fucking crazy too.

**Author's Note:**

> so in all actuality i love the IDEA of john b, and i spent the better half of the first two episodes trying really really hard to get into his character, because hopeless adventurer who is obsessed with something they think will heal them but won't and also has daddy issues is RIGHT up my alley (see: richard gansey the third from the raven cycle series, my actual real life husband) but the writing...left so much to be desired. eventually i saw the way of the Lord and hyper-focused on jj instead, but this my small attempt at fixing the most EGREGIOUS error in john b's writing. 
> 
> i hope everyone else is as mad about that line as i am, otherwise you probably didn't enjoy this fic very much. anyway, leave a comment if you feel inclined to do so and let me know if there's anything you'd really like to see written!! i make no promises, but i'm having an ABSOLUTE BLAST writing jj, and am always looking for new ideas. thanks so much for reading and let me know what you think!!


End file.
